Rarely Played Shostakovich
Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 01/23/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I have generally shied away from titles on the Arte Nova label, but picked up this CD recently because there aren't a lot of choices when it comes to Shostakovich's 12th Symphony. I settled on this performance by conductor Michael Gielen because I was impressed by his recordings of the Bartok Piano Concertos with pianist Gyorgy Sandor on VoxBox (see my review). Gielen turns in a good account here as well, though the performance of Shostakovich's Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Orchestra certainly takes a back seat to those by Previn/Bernstein and by the composer himself with Cluytens (see my review of the latter). All in all, for the price, this was a good buy."